November 11, 2010

Preckwinkle names transition team

Cook County Board President-elect Toni Preckwinkle has announced a bipartisan transition team full of heavyweights from politics, the business community and civic organizations.

Among those appointed are former Gov. Jim Edgar, one of the state’s most respected Republicans, and former Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, a well-respected Democrat who lost to Edgar for governor in 1994.

The team will put together an “action plan” for Preckwinkle to follow after she takes office on Dec. 6. That plan based on “policy team” reports released by Preckwinkle last week. They can be found here.

All 50 aldermen on the Chicago City Council had to file paperwork earlier this year detailing their outside income and gifts. The Tribune took that ethics paperwork and posted the information here for you to see. You can search by ward number or alderman's last name.

The Cook County Assessor's office has put together lists of projected median property tax bills for all suburban towns and city neighborhoods. We've posted them for you to get a look at who's paying more and who's paying less.

Past posts

Clout has a special meaning in Chicago, where it can be a noun, a verb or an adjective. This exercise of political influence in a uniquely Chicago style was chronicled in the Tribune cartoon "Clout Street" in the early 1980s. Clout Street, the blog, offers an inside look at the politics practiced from Chicago's City Hall to the Statehouse in Springfield, through the eyes of the Tribune's political and government reporters.